Judge to unseal remaining warrants in Clark case

New Haven Superior Court Judge Roland Fasano intends to unseal portions of the last of the search warrants issued in the case of Raymond Clark III, the man who in January pleaded not guilty to the murder of Annie Le GRD ’13.

Fasano said in a brief hearing this afternoon that the court plans to “apply the same reasoning and the same standards” as in his Nov. 6 memo regarding the unsealing of the other warrants in the case, and that he plans to redact certain portions of the final warrant.

Fasano said he will file a memorandum calling for the documents to be unsealed, and the unsealed portions of the warrant will be held — for the “right to appeal” — for three days afterward before being released. The memorandum will be filed within a few weeks, according to the Court clerk’s office.

The warrant was issued after Clark’s Sept. 17 arrest, one of Clark’s lawyers, Joseph Lopez, said Tuesday.

Neither Lopez nor Clark’s other lawyer, Beth Merkin, was present at the hearing Wednesday, but public defender Tejas Bhatt appeared on their behalf. The defense had filed a motion to extend the seal.

Search and seizure warrants released in early December showed that bloodstains were found in Clark’s apartment. The arrest warrant affidavit released in November showed that bloody items of clothing and DNA matches led to Clark’s arrest.

Lopez said Tuesday that he does not think the information in the final warrant will be surprising.

Clark’s next pre-trial court date is scheduled for April 7.

Comments

med10

Hopefully this will eventually bring some closure to The family of Annie. Unfortunately that will require several years of this case crawling through the justice system as this monsters rights are carefully protected. He not only destroyed a family, he destroyed an entire environment of trust and family at the Amistad building. Who really feels safe anymore? Now we get an e-mail from Chief Perrotti that a man attacked a female in front of the Medical School in broad daylight. And rumors from talking to others are there are drastic cuts coming in security soon after the recent shake up in the security staff. Did Yale learn nothing? Do the powers that be even care? Clark was an isolated case, but how many more like him are out there?

Observer

I think people should be concerned about the lack of security, although it seems like the killer of Annie was able to exploit every security loop hole including avoiding human traffic in the lab area.
I’ve looked through the warrants, I’m not sure if many here leaving comments have. I see too many unanswered questions that fail to point to Clark’s guilt.
For example, we haven’t been told of Annie’s estimated time of death. She may have died that Tuesday morning, but she may have died in the afternoon or a day later. We don’t know anything about that. The police are relying too much on card scan activity, except that anyone can use a scan card as they don’t require passwords; and people don’t need to scan to exit, and they can enter without scanning if someone else is entering at the same time.
The DNA evidence connecting Clark and Annie was found on clothing items located in the lab, and may have been easily accessible by anyone if animal techs leave their clothing lying around without locking them up. None of the warrants have indicated they found Annie’s blood on clothing at Clark’s residence. Also, they found a lab coat, and I think other clothing, with Annie’s blood, but the DNA was of an unknown male. In other words, not Clark’s, as of the warrants.
I don’t know if the new warrant release will reveal new evidence that hasn’t been already mentioned. It will further contaminate the search for unbaised jurors.